Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJames Hastings Dictionary of the Bible: Shittim
Subjects in this Topic:
SHITTIM.—1. The name of the last encampment of the Israelites, on the east of the Jordan opposite Jericho. There the Israelites began to intermarry with Moabites (Num_25:1 ff.), and from there Joshua sent out the spies to Jericho (Jos_2:1; Jos_3:1). The name means ‘acacias,’ and the place is called in Num_33:49 Abel-shittim, or ‘Meadow of acacias.’ Josephus (Ant. IV. viii. 1, v. i. 1) identifies the place with Abila, which he says is 71/2 Roman miles east of the Jordan, and which Jerome says was 6 miles east of it. Several modern scholars identify Abila with Khirbet Kefrên at the entrance of the Wady Kefrên, at the base of the mountains of Moab.
2. Joel’s reference to the ‘Valley of Shittim’ (Joe_3:18) must refer to some valley leading from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea (cf. Eze_47:1 ff.)—perhaps the ‘Valley of the brook Kidron,’ the modern Wady en-Nâr. It is certainly not the same as No. 1, although confused with it by Ochser (JE [Note: Jewish Encyclopedia.] xi. 297 f.). The reference to Shittim in Mic_6:5—‘from Shittim to Gilgal’—is geographically unintelligible, and is rightly thought by many scholars to be a gloss.
George A. Barton.